Our local cemeteries are places of rest for those who have gone before. The persons buried there have left their life stories for us to discover. One such story is that of Lansford Foster Chapman who lost his life during the Civil War in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia.

Chapman was born at Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) on September 13, 1834, to Joseph Henshaw Chapman, of Northampton, Massachusetts, and Martha Probasco Wooley, of Chester County, Pennsylvania. The young Chapman was educated in the Mauch Chunk schools and spent a year in the Wyoming Seminary. He began work as a civil engineer at the age of 15 with a company constructing a railroad in Summit Hill. Chapman married Olive A. Jackson of Carbondale, shortly before the Civil War and soon after began a lumber business. The couple would have two children, Joseph and Hattie.Chapman served for a year or two as a lieutenant with the Cleaver Artillerists, a Mauch Chunk militia group. Upon the commencement of the Civil War in April 1861, and Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, three full companies were raised in Mauch Chunk. Having too many men volunteer, Chapman was among those who were not accepted for service at that time.However, in June 1861, Chapman, his brother Charles, and Jacob D. Arner, recruited a company from Mauch Chunk and vicinity which would serve for three years, and was accepted by Colonel John W. Geary, who would later become governor of Pennsylvania, as Company E of the 28th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Chapman was elected Captain of the Company.The 28th Regiment served in the Shenandoah Valley (Virginia) in the latter part of 1861 and with General John Pope in the Virginia Campaign of 1862. Captain Chapman was struck by a piece of a shell at Antietam on September 17, 1862, and was considerably wounded but recovered to again lead his Company.Captain Chapman was promoted to Major in January 1863 and immediately took command of the 28th Volunteers. He retained this command until 10 o'clock in the morning of Sunday, May 3, 1863, when he was shot thorough the heart while leading his men during the most intense part of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Chapman's panicked horse dragged his body into Confederate lines where it was not recovered because of the intense fighting.On May 4, 1892, the Indiana Progress, Indiana, Pa., printed an article taken from an unknown edition of Harper's Young People and reads as follows: "On Sunday morning, May 3, 1863, Mrs. Lansford F. Chapman, wife of the gallant soldier who was then in Virginia and in command of the twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, attended services in the church to which she belonged, in Mauch Chunk. Shortly after the service had begun she was suddenly taken very ill. Friends came to her assistance, and when she became able she gasped, 'The Major has been killed in battle.'This statement was found afterward to be strictly correct. He was killed while leading his comrades in a charge against the enemy at Chancellorsville in the midst of the severest fighting of that sanguinary engagement. He was killed so far as can be learned at the very moment his wife became ill. General Geary, commanding the division of which the twenty-eighth formed a part, saw him fall, and dismounted and marked the spot where he fell."In May 1865, when the war ended, now Brigadier General Geary returned to Chancellorsville to search for the body of Major Chapman. A correspondent from the New York Tribune accompanied the group and described what he witnessed:"The most notable case of recognition was the discovery of the remains of the heroic Major Chapman of the twenty-eighth Pennsylvania volunteers, one of the finest regiments in the Second division of the Twelfth corps, which at the time of his death he was commanding. Major Chapman fell in sight of General Geary, and that thoughtful commander was the first to identify his remains, although they had several times been sought by his friends, but in vain. Knowing the spot where he fell, and finding a grave near, General Geary at once supposed it to be that of the lamented officer, and directed the disinterment. An eager crowd of friends of the deceased gathered around the spot, and as each shovelful of earth was laid aside, one and another identified some token. The teeth, hair, and size of the body all coincided with those of Major Chapman. In addition to these evidences there were several others equally strong. The coat was identified by the officer who ordered it from the maker. The buttons had been cut off by rebel desperadoes, and the pants were missing."Men who had been taken prisoners near the spot knew that the body of Major Chapman had been thus despoiled. It was known moreover that no other field officer had fallen near this position. Stronger evidences than these could scarcely be in a case of this kind. By order of General Geary the bones were carefully taken up and placed in a cracker box, the only receptacle which the moment afforded, and now they follow the command to Alexandria, whence they will be transported to the North."Major Chapman was laid to rest in the Upper Mauch Chunk Cemetery on May 27, 1865. Among many letters of condolence which his family received, the following paragraph from one written by Daniel Kalbfus, Esq.:"I never can forget him. He was a true man, a brave soldier, a finished scholar, and a perfect gentleman. He was my friend, and his friendship was very warm. A man of his years, talents, social and political attainments, will be missed in Carbon County, for, in my judgment, there were few like him. Brave to rashness, I knew that he would win honor at the head of his regiment, or die nobly fighting there, and so it proved."A fine monument was erected over the burial site of Major Chapman. A portion of his epitaph contains the following:"He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last battle; No sound can awake him to glory again!" (from the poem: The Grave of Bonaparte, by Lyman Heath)Mrs. Chapman remarried at some point in time to a man named Sellers and moved to Philadelphia. Her daughter Hattie died at age 16 in 1876 and husband died before her death in 1913. Mrs. Olive E. Chapman Sellers selected to be buried next to Major Chapman and their daughter in the Upper Mauch Chunk Cemetery.L.F. Chapman Post 61,

G.A.R., East Mauch Chunk, was named for Major Chapman.